# Why Doing More Is Breaking You (w/ Klaus Kleinfeld)

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** The Futur
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBt9lSDpHY
- **Дата:** 31.07.2025
- **Длительность:** 51:38
- **Просмотры:** 8,366

## Описание

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In this episode, Chris sits down with legendary CEO and leadership thinker Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld for a deep dive into the hidden engine behind long-term success: energy.

From running global companies like Siemens and Alcoa to mentoring the next generation of leaders, Klaus shares why burnout is not a badge of honor—and how purpose, mindset, and daily habits are the real levers of performance. This conversation is a masterclass on managing your inner game so you can lead with clarity, stamina, and conviction, no matter the chaos around you.

Whether you’re a founder on the brink, a high-achiever running out of steam, or simply someone who wants to lead better and live fuller—this episode is your blueprint.

What You'll Learn:
✅ Why energy—not time—is the real asset of high performers  
✅ How to avoid burnout while staying ambitious  
✅ The mindset reframe that separates fulfilled leaders from exhausted ones  
✅ How to tap into purpose (and use it like a laser)  
✅ Simple micro-habits to recharge mentally, emotionally, and spiritually

In This Episode:
(00:04) – From Siemens to Startups: Klaus’s Career Journey  
(03:50) – Burnout in Founders & Why Energy Is Everything  
(15:22) – The Inner Game vs. The Outer Game of Leadership  
(28:40) – The Purpose Principle: “Love It, Change It, or Leave It”  
(37:15) – Culture, Respect, and Leading Across Borders  
(45:09) – Sleep, Breathwork & Physical Hacks for High Energy

What Klaus Does & How He Does It:
Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld is a founder, global business leader, investor, and author. He’s currently the CEO of K2Elevation, Chairman of KONUX and FERNRIDE, and a board member of GreyOrange, Fero Labs, and NEOM.

He previously served as Chairman and CEO of Alcoa/Arconic and as CEO of Siemens AG, where he led transformational shifts in both organizations. Klaus has advised U.S. Presidents and international governments, and he’s a member of institutions like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution.

His new book "Leading to Thrive" unpacks the mindset, energy systems, and leadership frameworks that drive sustainable success—in business and in life.

🔗 Connect with Klaus Kleinfield: 
Klaus' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/klauskleinfeld/
Klaus' Website: http://leading-to-thrive.com/

🔗 Connect with Chris:
https://www.instagram.com/thechrisdo
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https://thefutur.com/
https://x.com/theChrisDo

#EnergyLeadership #BurnoutRecovery #InnerGame #HighPerformanceHabits #PurposeDrivenLife #ExecutiveMindset #MentalResilience #LeadershipDevelopment #TheFuturPodcast #ChrisDo #KlausKleinfeld #LeadingToThrive #PeakPerformance #SelfMastery #StressManagement #FoundersJourney #MindfulLeadership #EmotionalStamina #SustainableSuccess #ClarityAndConviction

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--
Host: Chris Do (Bald Asian Guy Talks About Business)
Produced and Edited by  @RichCardona  and  @UNFLTRTeam 

energy management, burnout prevention, purpose-driven leadership, emotional resilience, self-awareness in leadership, inner game strategies, sustainable success, mindful decision-making, leadership mindset, high-performance habits, CEO energy hacks, nervous system regulation, work-life alignment, clarity under pressure, spiritual energy, peak performance, conscious leadership, identity and detachment, stress mastery, personal vitality

## Содержание

### [0:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBt9lSDpHY&t=4s) From Siemens to Startups: Klaus’s Career Journey

your purpose because in the end, you will spend a lot of time in your job. And I think you should look for something that you truly enjoy. I have always lived by the principle even when I didn't have money. I either love it, I change it, or I leave it. Hello, my name is Klaus Kleinfeld and you are listening to the future. So, my guest for today's podcast is Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld. I've been given permission to call him Klouse. So we can keep this on an informal basis. He does a lot of thinking and writing on the inner game like the mindset, the belief systems. And I know this from personal experience. As much advice as we can give to people until they unlock this inner parts of them, they're always stuck and they're held back. So uh Claus, welcome to the show. For people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background? — Klaus Linfeld. I'm an industrialist by background. worked in many industries. Had 20 years with Seammen's ran Seammen's worldwide and then moved back to the US and became the CEO of Alua and ran that for 10 years and split the company into Alcoa and Arconic. After that was the first CEO of Neon and I also now have a portfolio of different things. One is a family company in the probiotic space as well as an investment company in active investment particularly in the AI as well as software space and then uh on the advisory side uh to do mentoring for for leaders as well as advise some companies as well as countries. — I've not had a person on the show before introduce themselves as an industrialist. What is that? I've never heard that before. Well, I mean I st I started my life in in the consumer business frankly in consulting and did a lot of consumer business but I realized that I was very much attracted with complicated stuff and B2B mostly B2B things which uh which have technological backgrounds you know and that fascinated me a lot particularly after acquainting myself how it is selling dog food as well as washing powders. So, so that and I mean I could also say I'm an entrepreneur. I like business. I love business. I've done business since I was 12 years old, you know, more for life pushed me into it, frankly, and to make it a little more nicer. But I mean, deep down inside, I mean, it's all about entrepreneurship, finding an opportunity, then building on it, you know, and but mostly in the industrial space. So, I think you said from dog food to detergents, you've done it all. You've worked in those spaces. — Yeah. I couldn't name more strange things. — Okay. You've ratted off a handful of really large big organizations. Maybe some of our audience doesn't even know who they are, but they're massive corporations, organizations. What made you sit down and write this book that I want to spend a lot of time talking to you about leading to thrive? — Yes. uh what made me sit down is that I have been um having been brought up in Germany as you probably hear from my accent you know discipline is a very important thing and I was a big fan of time management until um a few years ago I realized it's really not about time it's rather managing your energy and then I realized that this concept of energy management is unfortunately not that common and not that well understood and I thought for a while that this is only the issue for those who are longer in the game who burn out that but then when I formed my investment company and also worked with companies that are two to five years away from going public I realized that is even worse I would say in the younger generation and the in

### [3:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBt9lSDpHY&t=230s) Burnout in Founders & Why Energy Is Everything

the founders generation because I had an experience of two individuals you know one was a founder another one was a leadership group who burned out have barely been 30 years old and almost died one of the persons almost died — and I thought, "Wow, you know, I think I have to provide the framework. " And in my coaching, I did provide that. But then I thought, I mean, I have limited time to do this one-on-one. So, why don't I use a medium also like this podcast, but based on the book that people find a a the concept described also with examples and also with some what I call hacks so that they could use it and hopefully live a much better life. Not just business, more successful in business, but also more successful in life because the foundation of everything is energy. If you don't have energy, you whatever you want to do with it, you bring it to the business world, your private life, you know, if you're burned out, you're not going to be a good partner to your boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever, you know, or friends, you know, and at the same time, you're also not going to be successful in business. — I want to take advantage of this fact that you're I believe I read you're a dual citizen. Obviously, there's the German accent, but you're living in New York. I'm just curious with what's going on in the world right now. Like, what is your perspective on the differences in American and German culture? — Well, I mean, I could focus on the differences, and obviously there are some, but my and I've got this question a lot when I moved around. I've been working internationally almost all of my life. The most interesting thing is that there is more commonality, fundamental commonality than difference. And what I found is that in reality, everybody wants to be treated with respect. — That's number one, you know, and the way it's disrespect is seen or respect is expressed can have or does have very often cultural nuances. But in the truth, I mean, you your filter always has to be I need to if I want to win this person over, I even if I do not agree with this individual, I have to find a way that is in a respectful way to handle it. And as a leader, that's obviously extremely important. I mean, I know that some viewers take the position and say, I have the gun in my hands, you know, and that's sufficient enough to motivate people to do what I want. Yes, this worked and sometimes works even today. But in most environments, top talent has choices and will look at you and say, "Thank you very much. I had it and I'll go somewhere else. " Uh so that I mean that's my experience. But you can also see from me having decided to come back to the US that I believe that the system here is a system that uh has a lot of advantages. I'm personally one of the things I don't know whether you want to talk about that. I was very strongly influenced by my parents were refugees from East Germany. The family was left behind and then my father died when I was 10 and my mother started to work again and during the long vacations what does she do with a boy? She sends him back to his family and that was all in East Germany. So I spent a lot of time in East Germany during my formative years and then and I learned to two systems with fortunately the right passport a west German passport and that strongly influenced my view on freedom you know that freedom of speech is particularly important and uh and I feel that that's at the core of what America is about and also right what we are an immigrant nation Everybody has come from somewhere. I got the question all the time, hey class, how have you been welcomed as a German in the US and said nobody asked me where I'm from because everybody is from somewhere you know and the real question that you get is hey what can you bring to the table? Can we work together? What can we do together and at the same time you know there is no there's no envy about success and it's rather like hey tell me more. I want to be successful and learn from you. So um that's what attracted me to come here and to live here is this is where I'm at home. — You mentioned something about seeing these young founders and leaders burning out and leading to like maybe a near-death situation. And here's something I have a question for you in terms of like I know you talk a lot about leadership is that I find that young people today have a different mindset about work. And I'm sharing perhaps this stereotype about millennials especially where they show up to work thinking when you pay me enough I'll start to care. Whereas my generation Gen X was like we showed up we just worked really hard and then we were rewarded for it. So something has happened in the workplace and these are natural evolutions of different generations. Do you have a perspective on this? — Yeah, I do. And I think that what you're saying is probably in general um the description is correct. At the same time, you see there's still a broadbased variance there. I I my impression is that in the end it all comes down to finding your purpose and that I think is also an important and you if you feel that you are not just putting some hours in mindlessly you know accepting a job that you really don't like and distinguish between I spend some time at the job and but my real life is outside of the job I don't find that that's a good recipe for fulfilled life definitely not a fulfilled life because in the end you will spend a lot of time in your job and I think you should look for something that you truly enjoy. I have always lived by the principle even when I didn't have money I either love it I change it or I leave it and I could highly recommend that and back to the energy point you know to for people to understand purpose does to energy what a laser does to light. The moment you have a purpose, it suddenly focuses this and gives you enormous strength. You know, like a laser, it can go through anything. You know, you are tired, you know, you get out of your bed in the morning, the moment the purpose kicks in, you say, "Oh my god, let's get on it. " You know, I'm ready. I want to achieve this. This is what I'm here for. You know, so I use the book also to reflect more on this concept of purpose because it is a concept that um humankind has been dealing with since we exist, right? And a lot of intelligent people have been thought about it. So you find a lot there about purpose. — I find that younger people especially are way more purpose driven than say my generation where we show up it's a means to make money so that we can provide for our family and think about the future. Whereas young people really do choose to align themselves with companies that they can get behind. Now, as we look across like just mostly in America, I would say like and I'm not that familiar with it, but a lot of corporations, I don't know what the purpose is. And is this a problem? — It is a problem. You know, I and and I one of the recommendations that I have for business leaders is make sure that you explain to your team what is the greater purpose. And the interesting thing is if they start thinking about it, in almost all cases, you find something. So at one time I did a turnaround of the seaman's angioraphy and x-ray business and it was the birth of the medical business uh but uh it had deteriorated and compared to the new what's called modalities computer demography MRI and stuff like that. So the team that I had was beat down. We didn't make money and it was a beatdown team. I had spent some time at the hospitals and had realized that what we were able to do was not just diagnosing but we also started to go into minimally invasive interventions and saw patients who literally survived not just because of the diagnosis but because of the treatment that was possible. This had not made it into the mindset of the workforce. The workforce were beat down and they didn't know what the purpose was. So I invited a patient one day from the from from Munich and had her talk during an all hands meeting explain what happened to her and in the end people were clear to people that she was treated diagnosed and treated with seammen's equipment and in the medical industry you basically have to write down who worked on the equipment and so I gave her the list of the names and she read out the names and asked them to come on stage. I tell you, I mean, in the evening, the head of the labor union, and trust me, this is northern part of Bavaria. These are people who have seen a lot and not easy to move. So, so the head of the labor union comes into my office and says, "Hey, Dr. Kleinfeld, thank you. " And I said, "Thank you for what? Thank you for giving us our soul back verbatim," you know, and he said, "We we forgot why we're doing what we're doing, you know. " So this was I knew at that moment we will do a great turnaround and trust me this is one of the divisions that is most profitable inside of CMAN since and they've done a lot of amazing things to you people you know so I can highly reua in this case we invited a an astronaut and had the astronaut talk about what goes through the minds and the countdown and obviously when the person gets shot into outer space where there's only a piece of aluminum this thick that basically distinguishes them from death, you know. So the idea of who has made it, what quality standards have they used, you know, could there be a kernel of impurity in it that in the end under pressure, heat or whatever, you know, can break and knowing that these are determined folks, you know, gives them peace of mind that they will return healthy back to mother earth. Um, it goes a long way. I can tell you — In the case of Semens where you find this patient who's been benefited from early diagnosis and her life presumably saved or altered in a way that is positive. You find these stories and you share it in an all hands meeting. How does the company continue that story and that belief and that purpose so that when you're not there it lives with them. It lives inside of them. — Well, you have to find ways to constantly remind them. So one of the things that we did is there was fortunately this was a location is a location where marketing, sales, research and development and manufacturing is all under one roof. So which is great. I love that you know and so what we did also is in the assembly line we actually put a name uh on where does this equipment go so that they would know it goes to god knows what place in Michigan. you know this equipment that they are building goes there. So they knew if they are late you know and we told them look it up on a map look at this machine this andography machine will go to a place which takes care of a 100 mile radius in you know they will have patients if you are late it basically means there are patients who will not be treated will not be diagnosed and treated they will never forget every moment they go they say no we got to get this thing out of the door when we not make mistakes, you know. — Okay. So, you build this into the production process so that it's not just a machine, it's a machine connected to real people and the encouragement of understanding literally like it's not

### [15:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBt9lSDpHY&t=922s) The Inner Game vs. The Outer Game of Leadership

just a general area, but there are lives here that you will positively impact. — And that was just one thing. I I had a folding chair uh and put on the folding chair a brass plate and the brass pitch had customized. So, because the because some of the R& D discussions were so far away from understanding what's the customer value. So I brought this folding table in folding chair into the meetings and set it up next to me. I said I brought a good friend of mine here today who wants to listen and then I unfold they say he's gone crazy mad he's gone mad you know I just said customer I said oh it's the customer he wants to listen you know to what you are discussing and wants to reflect on how this is going to help them — right because if they don't understand what you're talking about you know you probably have to explain to them how this helps them you know so I tell you that alone I mean constant reminders we had a group of extremely good doctors that we invited twice a year uh top-notch doctors and had an NDA with them. They came to the room and we showed them everything and it was brutal. The conversation was brutal, brutally good, you know, because it's better to have your friends criticizing you than seeing that the product tanks in the marketplace. — These are really big companies and we're building big machines that are going to impact hundreds of thousands of lives. Does this idea scale? Like if I'm running an organization that's a serviceoriented company of 20 people or less, how do we use some of these ideas to connect people with purpose and the lives that we're touching? — Uh it depends on the industry. The most important thing is have your ear on the ground with real customers. Customer service for instance, many people see customer service I see it that companies have customer service. Most of the companies have customer service that's lousy absolutely lousy and not even human machine you know you write something to them you never hear from them you know in the end the customer feedback is gold absolutely gold because from the customers you do learn what is probably be to be improved with your products what needs to be explained better you know so you have to find a way how you get customer feedback as direct as possible I'm a big fan of of doing some of it myself, doing phone calls, doing phone calls myself and talking to customers and just hearing it directly to have a repository of what is the feedback that you get uh which everybody can look into. You know, have net promoter scores measurement of that. you know, that together with how motivated are my employees and how much cash do I have in the bank are the three most important um variables that I always look at no matter whether it's small or big business. — I find that when they run a small business, they don't have that kind of mindset yet that sometimes, especially in the creative space, they feel like sometimes, and I know this is going to be a shock to you, the customer gets in the way of them doing what they want to do. You know what I So their idea of customer service is shut up, pay me on time, and be grateful that I actually show up and do this. — How does how do we help them? — How does that usually end? Not well. So funny enough, first of all, this is a normal problem and part of it is because they live in two different worlds and also they speak two different languages. They speak a language of features, you know, developers speak. Whereas there's another group which is the marketing and sales department that speak the language of user impact and typically these languages are not identical and I give you an example of where we once hit the wall also at the seaman's days you know we brought out the first uh phone with mobile phone with a color display and people were so excited it tank totally tank Holy tank, you know, and then the question is why? Because at that the color display is a technical term. It was freaking expensive for a technical term, but the application at that time no phone had a camera. No, The resolution of this color screen was so bad. Even if you had a camera, it would not have displayed an image really well. So there was no positive feature for the customer. It was just like it was more expensive. That's it, you know. So why on earth do you think that that helps? You have to distinguish whenever you have technical terms. The Japanese really figured it out. They build a matrix. Here's the technical terms and here is how what this means in terms of customer value, right? And you have to translate it. And sometimes I mean it's speed. When you talk about processors, it's speed relatively easy. memory already more difficult. what does memory mean? You know, where does it come out? You know, so but if you can't translate that into customer value, then also obviously they won't pay for it. It just means additional cost. It means less competitiveness. — So once again, in the case of Seammens where they come up with this colorful display that totally tanked in the market. What was the correction? — The correction was that we lost a lot of money and that and that I had hoped I didn't run the business. I looked at it from the side and uh yeah it was very frustrating to be honest you know so I think there was probably not at that time not enough of a learning to be honest you know — I wanted to see if you have a perspective uh since you were talking about semens and color displays and audience like what is he talking about we all have color displays can could you have a perspective on maybe some contemporary like something that's happened recently like this is the example in modern days in modern day terms like they're kind of effing out up in the same way where they create something and they're not really thinking about the customer. — Yeah, I'm thinking of I mean it happens all the time in the software world. — Where was I recently kind of getting annoyed? It's really those things when you get annoyed. Why is this not user friendly? Now that you call me out, I I'm like always when I sit behind my desk and having to configure something and I think what the what on earth are they thinking? Oh yeah, I configured recently uh yeah the pool an outdoor pool and it has obviously a system now where you can set a program. Every time someone comes and we switch the damn thing on, I have to remind myself how was the how was the programmer thinking when I set a certain flag. You know the the user interface is counterintuitive, very counterintuitive — uh to the real environment, you know, and then they are yeah whatever. And then you very often you see multiple variables and you don't know what those variables actually influence. — I can so relate to this. We have a pool. We have a complicated system. I didn't want to touch it. It's like every time I have to get it going to heat up the jacuzzi or whatever. It's like wait, what do we have to do again? Like and did it turn itself off or do I am I going to be up all night thinking that the pool's just running the entire time? Exactly. Little things like that. — Exactly. And then you go down to the pool and you hold your hand into the water and you feel is it coming out warm? Is it hot warm? You know, so — all right, I want to get to the to the meat of the book. It's this idea of the inner game and outer game. First of all, what the heck is the inner game? How does it relate to the things that we do in the outer game? — Inner game is basically down to energy. How much energy do you have? How do you conserve it? How do you get it? And the outer game is where do you bring on my book I focus really on business on the inner game. The inner game is the foundation for whatever you want to do. But I wrote the book really for the inner game. The outer game I I think I have we talked about some of these things. So I think you find a number of uh also funny stories in there and experiences. I tried to keep the whole tone of the book uh conversational. At the same time, I do believe a lot of the stuff in there is probably uh not common with them. Um but the inner game is really what was closest to my heart why I sat down and wrote it because I wanted to make sure that people understand okay what does that mean energy? Now I already said you know what are the sources of energy? There are really three to four sources of energy depending on how you slice it. You know the simplest one is body, mind and soul. I separate the mind into emotional and mental you know and then you attach the purpose to it as the focus on it. Then the question comes well what does that mean? How do I get physical energy? And we all know you know it's a lot about moving sleeping you know drinking the right thing eating the right things. One thing that has come in more into focus is the breath work. How do I breathe and how quickly I call it the hack. breathing is a super cool hack, you know, which you can use in a very good fast way to recharge. Then on the emotional side, we already talked about it. The emotions are what you allow to have happening. So if somebody is there who annoys you, you know, then it's not that you are annoyed by that person, it is you allow to be annoyed by that person. You can train yourself to basically look at it like Buddha did. You know, Buddha comes to a town, you know, and there's somebody yelling at him and Buddha doesn't say a thing. After a while, the guy stops and says to Buddha, "Now, what do you say? " And Buddha says, "Well, I want to ask you, you know, somebody comes with a present to somebody else and wants to give the present and the person who is supposed to receive the present refuses to take it. Who then owns the present? " And obviously the person who has a present in the hands which is the owner owns it. That's the point you know. So and you can train that. You can really train that really train that and just not allow people to annoy you. And I think also if you have people who constantly annoy you then back to the question change it love it change it or leave it. This might be good to not have them in your life anymore. You know try to get them out of your life if you can't change them. And the other thing on the mental side, it's really there's this old story about the shoe maker who the old shoemaker who wants to pass on his business has two old two sons, sends them both to Africa. The one son sends him back and says, "Daddy, I have very bad news. They all run around barefoot and there's no market here. " The other one sends a note back and says, "Daddy, unbelievable. Send me as many shoes as you can find. They are all running barefoot. The market is endless, you know, and frankly, I mean, as silly as the story sounds, I think we have seen gazillions of examples and that makes really true leaders. When others see a challenge, many people look for an opportunity and force themselves to say what how could I see it in a different way to not fall into group think. And the last point is spiritual energy. the spiritual energy uh is almost I mean almost not allowed to talk about it certainly not in a business book um but I can tell you this is this is not necessarily about relig religion this is more about what do you believe in and but I think even religion is something that people should reflect on I can from personal experience say it is an enormous source of energy And when you're going through really dark times which I wish no one for you it gives you enormous superpower uh in a heartbeat frankly in a heartbeat. Yeah. So that's that and then the question is you know how do I conserve it you know that's and how do I re rebuild it and you constantly have to rebuild it every day. You wake up in the morning, you are really nicely charged. You know, during the course of the day, it it burns out. And then how do you rebuild it? Rebuild it. And that's the thing. The point is downtime is productive time. You have to have certain routines. There are this micro habits. I mean, one of my friends who is in Hong Kong at a high-rise, he has and runs a large company there. He takes his phone, his cell phone, gives it to his assistant, goes to the elevator, takes it down, walks a few times around the block, it goes up again, and he's refreshed. Some people just say, I switch the phone off, give it to my assistant, do a breathing exercise behind my desk, you know. So, there is tons of micro habits and we can learn a lot from these high performance fields that have figured it out. They But I mean there you see in all of the high performance fields the athletes have gone older and can perform for

### [28:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBt9lSDpHY&t=1720s) The Purpose Principle: “Love It, Change It, or Leave It”

longer whereas in the business field is exactly the opposite. So I would say you know let's learn from them and let's just have more fun. And the other thing is bring it not just to your business life but also bring it to your personal life and lead a more fulfilled life. — I can't tell how old you are. I'm going to say that we're probably similar age. Maybe you're a little bit older than me, but you seem like you live with a lot of vitality. You seem to be a high energy person. So, what do you personally do so that you feel like recharged and energized? — Yeah, I'm I live by this principle. So, so but it's not I mean it's not like I mean some of it I built in. So my team knows that in the morning I religiously have some time reserved for a workout and now I don't mind getting up early and I used to think that I can get away with very little sleep. It's just in the last I would say three years where I played with having a little more sleep and I have to say it does me well on the mental side. I've always I think I've always been somebody who always looks for the opportunity in the mess and people who worked with me would say when it gets really rough close gets calmer and calmer and that's true and I think that that's a routine that I've trained myself and then on the spiritual side I already told you I mean I have when I lost my fathers was clearly and I was very young and I was sitting by his bedside when when he died not knowing that this is what's happening. Nobody knew it at that time. And he had an anorism and that was at that time not diagnosed, you know. So, um yeah. So, and that when you have moments like this, um you you get tested. You get tested and it worked in my case. I wouldn't say it was easy, but those are the main principles. And then I have some of these things like love it, change it or leave it. you know, some of those principles. I love teamwork. I I'm an addict. Uh I love to work with good people and I love to build high performance teams. It's a pure joy for me. Pure joy. — Just out of curiosity, how much sleep do you get a night? — Well, currently I have more than six hours, six to six and a half hours. Yes. During the week, certainly, but there's I mean, people always say you can't catch up on the weekend. I'm not quite sure that that's true and always keep in mind I mean I travel a lot so um and I only realize now the sleep trackers are really cool because or the trackers in general because they show you all of the things that kind of get a little bit out of balance in a more objective way — with the data that you collect with the sleep tracker. What do you do to adjust it so you are optimizing your sleep? Well, I basically look there's two sleep phases that you want to look at. I mean, there's the deep sleep and there's the REM phase. The deep sleep is very important for physical relaxation. The REM face is important for mental relaxation. First of all, you have to see that you get enough of both during the course of the night. And secondly, when you don't get enough of that, you have to ask yourself what happened the what what happened. And it's pretty clear on my end what are the typical disturbances. If I ate too much too late then my body is like a ba constrictor. Uh it actually digesting whatever I put onto it. if it was a big steak which is really bad you know two hours before I go to bed there's no wonder that my sleep is not ideal you know same thing is true if I drink and it's really interesting that already small amounts make an impact I mean I kind of don't like that but I have to admit it's true at least the data show me that it is the case — you don't like the fact that it wants you to drink a little bit less and not more — yeah exactly spoken like a true German right there. — And you mentioned something about intermittent fasting. Is this like when you restrict the times in which you eat or do you fast throughout the day? — No, not throughout the day. I do it I try to eat relatively early have dinner when I can control it have dinner relatively early and then I don't um eat breakfast and then I start eating again around 12:30 or so. That um I kind of like it. It doesn't and I drink water, you know. So yeah. — Um, but I've never been a big breakfast person. So that helps. — I think a lot of people who, especially young people that I run into seem to be like tired all the time. — This is not rocket science, everybody. Let's just go over it. You need to sleep. And they think they don't need enough sleep. You need to stay hydrated. You need to eat good, clean food. Maybe not always, but most of the time. Um, you need to exercise. You need to move your body. And you you I think you already know this part, but you got to do something that you believe in because that could be really draining on your energy in a way that it's hard to like compensate for. And I think we live in this wonderful time now where we're way more connected to what we want from life and we have a lot of options. We can work remotely. We can apply for jobs anywhere in the world now that really feels connected to us. And there's less and less of a reason. I know I'm speaking from a very privileged place where you have to show up to do the 9 to5 and just feel miserable about your entire life and if you want to increase your life force I think those are the basics right you got to get those into alignment — and I have to tell you I mean when my first paying job I was 12 it's not legal to work at 12 but I was always a little taller so I worked there they never asked for any documents they hired me to fill up the racks in the morning and on the weekend and paid me for it And it was objectively seen a pretty lousy job. You know, when you have to clean a rack with old milk in it. I don't even want to go into details. It's not fun, you know. So, but uh but for me, I mean, I got some fun out of it. I mean, partially also because I thought I mean how much freedom this the pay gave me. I enjoyed the people that I was working with. I actually learned something. It gave me a complete new insight into a different world. Uh so I think part of it was probably also that I was looking at the bright side of it and was not beating myself up. — It works that it works. — Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about the mindset part. You told a story about Buddha and it's kind of an interesting way to frame it. Like the person was bringing problems to Buddha but Buddha said there's a present. I just don't want your present and that's totally okay. And you get to keep this rotten present for yourself. — Exactly. — That and that was a beautiful way to explain that story. And also about the shoe maker who's like two children exact same scenario depending on how they look at things can totally change their perspective. Can we spend more time on this mental shift because I think people struggle through this so much. I have friends who complain about things all the time like — didn't you put yourself in a situation like this? Why we love to complain apparently in some cultures more than others. But how do we get out of this? — It's fine. I mean, I think there's one way to get out of it if you and you have to have really good friends and you you might otherwise lose them. I mean, sometimes you can it's fun if you go into it more even more extreme, you know. So then instead of I mean you typically being the one who tries to pull them back, you then add to it and you make them realize add little things. say and the water is too warm and by the way the uh yesterday my cell phone ranged only five times am I losing importance so drive it to some really crazy situation so until they realize that you are making fun of the situation and that it's time to switch you know so um yeah but I think there's a number of tricks one is also compartmentalization in on the mental side instead of saying I mean staging is one thing what I just described type is stagging. So you say I have one problem and instead of having that one problem that I can solve, I now add to it another problem and that's not enough. I add a third problem and the fifth until I've got 20 problems and by that time you realize you are in a rut. This is impossible. You are screwed, you know. So there's no way out and you're screwed, you know. So that's one way you know to really

### [37:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBt9lSDpHY&t=2235s) Culture, Respect, and Leading Across Borders

screw yourself instead of saying okay you know we need one thing after the other let's first think one pro problem number one how do we deal with that done boom problem number two let's separate it how do we deal with that done you know problem number three bum bum you know and also prioritize and say how is anything going to harm you your life also putting it in perspective saying well this things that you call problem I just got a call from a friend of mine who's got diagnosed with brain cancer, you know, so how does that relate to a person like this, you know, so making sure that people understand, you said it before, we are in a priv privileged position. I think sometimes it's important to remind yourself uh how privileged you are when you are simply healthy, right? We take it for granted but it's I mean just go into a hospital if you don't know how it looks you know and you would probably come back as an altered individual you know so the other thing is the compartmentalization I see that many people it's thisid idiotic thing I see many times in leaders who tell me that they are late because they had to do this one thing or they can't do this because there's one more thing that came up that they have to solve and it feels like they are thinking and my question is if you don't do this does anybody get hurt? We say no, nobody would get hurt. Okay, what is the most negative impact of that? And they say that it's going to uh be one more day, one more day later, you know, and who's in charge of this? Is there are you in charge of? No, somebody else in charge of it. Have you asked the person to do it? No, I know the person can't do it. Why is the person still there if you think that they can't do it and they get paid for it, you know? So to bring it back to say hey focus only on those things that only you can do for instance is a good mantra and also when you I mean one of the things that I've always done with my family is when I I create the special moments. So basically my office puts in certain time slots and when I'm there with the family I'm really there only if something really dramatic happens you know then my office would pour me out but otherwise I'm there for them I'm focused fully on them and I really keep in my head keep business out so I'm also mentally there and this is the compartmentalization you basically say this bucket is not here yet I close the door and literally mentally I really close this out and I have this bucket now which is family, children, girlfriend, friends, you know, whatever it is. — I find that trait to be more common in men than women. The ability to compartmentalize. — Um whereas like say my own life experience, my wife's feeling bad about something, it's going to bleed over to everything. It just cannot be put into a box. — But sometimes I think she's really healthy because she's always expressing what she thinks and feels in the moment. whereas we tend to go into our cave put into a little box and to come out and sometimes it can be very toxic. So there's pros and cons to everything. — Now John Gray has written this f fabulous book men are from mass women from Venus you know and I can it's older but I can highly recommend it. I actually uh recommended it also to my children and their husbands to read it before they got married, you know, and then had lunch with them to question them on whether they understood it because I saw it firsthand with my wife who I know for a long time and only when I read Gray's book, which is long time ago, I have to admit, when it just came out, I realized that there is this fundamental difference. And I think women can compartmentalize actually better than men. Uh but what you are describing is a different thing because women are juggling many more traditionally juggling many more tasks than men typically are juggling. So they can do this but the what you are describing as an indicator that they can't is a different thing. It is more the thing that the way the problem solve is by sharing with you and they don't want the men jumping into solving problems. They just want to share you know and I think the best way is to just be there uh and listen and say I understand what is going on. Tell me more. Wow this is terrible. I feel I feel for you. And if you go into, hey, why don't we do this one? You are annoying. You are annoying to that individual, you know, to the to to the to the female because she knows what to do. In most cases, she knows it better than you. That's not why she's talking to you. She's talking to you because she wants empathy. That's what she's asking for. I do remember that part of the book. So, your memory is still very good because I remember that as well. Men kind of become idiots sometimes and try to solve problems. I'm like, "No, that's not what they want. " — Yeah. — Just relax. Listen, be different. — We're very different that way. Okay. Are there any other hacks? This inner game hack that you want to share with us? Well, — I think we talked about a lot of things. I mean, I think this breathing thing is a very cool hack, you know, where if you can use it anytime, you don't need anything for it. Just lean back, concentrate on the breathing, concentrate on breath going in like a wave. You know, many people have unlearned that typically when you breathe in, it's like a wave. So your stomach also comes out, you know, and goes in. It's really like a wave. Concentrating on that. If you want to to have some break time in between, you count, you know, to distract your mind also. I mean, the there's a thing called box breathing. And the reason why it's called box breathing, it's called four, four, four. And it means you count to four while you breathe in and let this wave roll through. You then count to four and hold it. And you count to four while you let it out. Count to four when you breathe in. And this you will see in very short time. It increases your alertness. And most of the the top uh performance teams, they're definitely in the special forces. They all use this purposely before they go into the mission to just be completely mentally focused. I think it it's strange to talk about breathing. It's one of those natural things. But there's a lot of people who talk about like we don't breathe what we need to. We just breathe barely enough to survive. And breathing can change your state. We can oxygenate our blood. And one of the things I struggle with, and somebody told me this before, when my voice gets like — all scratchy, they're telling me I haven't been breathing enough the whole time. I'm straining my vocal cords. — Yeah. Well, that's the other thing. I mean, straining your vocal cords in fact is a sign of stress, you know, and uh and — my wife used to be a teacher in her first life. And I remember uh when she got into this long time ago, she uh because she realized that uh her vocal cords started to get a little rusty. So I was trying to talk her into becoming the singer in a rock band, but she didn't want to do that. So she took a voice lesson to learn this. And uh and that was a great investment, a great investment because there's a way, you know, how you can train it, how you can sensitize yourself. Uh this is now where where the stress sets in. You press, you start pressing and it becomes more and more difficult. More horse and more horse, you know, and again, if you want to be a singer in a rock band, that's probably a good thing. But normally it stresses you out. I can't remember which actor this was, but they have an ability to cry on command. And the interviewer asked him

### [45:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBt9lSDpHY&t=2709s) Sleep, Breathwork & Physical Hacks for High Energy

this question. It's like, how are you able to do this? And they were like a little bit like, I'm not sure I want to tell you a trade secret, but they do tell the trade secret, which is really interesting to me. They say they take in a lot of rapid breaths and that triggers the crying response. You know, like when you're a kid and you cry so much, you're like, so if they just do that, it's enough for them to trigger the cry. So they're like off camera, bunch of short breaths and then they do that. So it's really interesting how breath can help us relax. It can stimulate us or it can strain our cords or it can help trigger a crying response. — I think posture in general is under undervalued. I mean try to be uh really unhappy when you look up. Try to be really unhappy when you're looking up. Try to smile while you're on the phone. And this is the old really old trick of telephone salespeople. You just smile and you just come across as more likable even though they don't see you. you, there's something that happens uh in your voice in the way you approach it. When you smile, move this muscles, you know, something in your state changes. — I think the whole uh looking up is like looking to the horizon because when we feel safe, there's the only time we can look towards the horizon, right? Because if something's going to kill us, something going to fight us, some so we're not feeling safe, we don't look towards the horizon. But if you look towards the horizon, there's some inner thing that's happening that calms you down that you're more relaxed and you're happier. Right. — I think that's true. That's true. Well, and also I think this point of very often people say, hey, on the mental side, do some um do some exercises, do some meditation. That's great. At the same time, many people give up because they don't succeed. They say, "Hey, you know, there's always some chatter going on in my head. " That's normal. You the way you do it in the beginning, you just let it occur, you know, just let it flow. And probably one last thing that I want to add is in my book, I also put in there, what do people say on their deathbed? And I think that's probably the final wakeup call for everybody who doesn't take it serious. And it's really interesting. I mean, nobody says, "I wish I had worked more and spent more time in the office. " People do, however, say, "I wish I had allowed myself to be more me. I happier. not listened to other people that much. " Those are the things that people say. And the good news is we are all alive hopefully healthy and happy, you know, and we can change it. — I've been talking to Dr. uh Klaus Kleinfeld and we in his book it's called leading to thrive and be there's a lot of concepts you brought up uh Klaus and in case somebody's confused in case somebody's and they're listening to this right now and let's just say they've read every business book out there and they still feel lost. What's the first practice you tell them to implement tomorrow morning? So we've talked about a lot of things but maybe at this point they're like I don't know what to do anymore. Let leave us with one nugget. — Start with breathing. Just it's short — huge impact and then go to physical exercise. — Learn to breathe and do a little bit of physical movement. — Exactly. — What does that do for us? — The same thing. The moment you move your body, you know the lymph system which is basically the waste system of the body doesn't have its own organ. It only works through our movement. So the lymph system is important to get all the waste out and again your your energy juices the muscles and everything the body now gets the stimulus it's time to you know be alert be human another great thing is by the way play with light you know at night get light blocked out entirely and during daytime expose yourself to light I have a little thing here somewhere which is called Blue light is a little box, you know, blue light works extremely well. It's like a drug. Uh, and you can put the blue light up on a gloomy day, which we have sometimes here in winter time in New York. Put a blue light up, boom. You know, even if it doesn't shine directly, it goes into the part into the retina, triggers a hormonal basis because uh during the daytime when the blue light is most prevalent, the hormones that make us alert gets exerted. the moment the sun goes down, it's red reddish, you know, these type of hormones don't come out anymore. Blue light is a real nice hack. If you have blue light all the time, you know, you are killing yourself. But — but so particularly also this is the reason why people say, "Hey, don't sit in front of your computer or in front of a TV too long because most of the screens emit a lot of blue light and the blue light has that impact. You can't cut it out unless you wear some people wear these orange sunglasses or so. This is why that is the case. It's a very mechanical response that changes the hormonal setup. — It do you need to exercise? Does it need to like you need to sweat a lot for this to work — because sweat is the way how it gets from your limbs out you know you pee it out. you it comes out wherever you have ways to get it out you know but the most important thing you have to get it moving that from your extremities it goes to the rest of your body and then out you know your kidneys and out you know it's lymph system — we went to a lot of different places today and if you're a person who's like I'm not feeling energized I'm going to recommend that you go out and pick up the book Leading to Thrive and start implementing some of these principles they're very practical, simple things that you can do to regulate your system. And I think the world is better when people are happier. We're better partners. We're better parents. We're better children. We're better bosses. We're better employees. Let's just work on the energy. Especially a lot of you young people. You should have a lot of it. And if you don't — Exactly. — Something is off. Something's out of balance. — Love it. Change it or leave it. — There we go. Thank you very much for being our guest today. — A pleasure. Real pleasure. Thank you very much.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/20106*